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A Government crackdown on unscrupulous scrap dealers has helped to cut the number of metal thefts from church roofs to the lowest for six years.

Last year, metal merchants were banned from paying cash to buy scrap metals such as copper and lead.

Specialist insurers, who have been facing hefty payouts on church burglaries, have also mounted national campaigns and offered free alarms to those most targeted.

The number of claims from Anglican churches whose roofs had been stripped of lead and other metals has now dropped from 2,600 to 930 last year, according to Ecclesiastical, the Gloucester-based insurer.